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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

He's not talking about unfairness to the employees in this case, but to third parties who are neither the employer nor the employee. If a company doesn't offer health insurance or a salary sufficient to buy private coverage, then what happens when one of their employees gets seriously ill? Generally they will still receive some care (at least in serious enough cases), so someone has to pay for it. It will be either: 1) a different company, indirectly via their health insurance package, which covers the person in question as a spouse or child; or 2) hospitals or the government, if a patient ends up going to the ER and receiving care they can't pay for.

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The costs incurred by people not paying for their medical services are relatively small, less than 5% of all health care costs.

A much bigger issue is higher insurance premiums due to unhealthy lifestyles.

Preventable poor health due to obesity, poor nutrition and lack of exercise are a major contributor to health care costs.

That results in higher costs for everybody.

As a healthy, fit, non-smoker and non-drug user, why should I have to pay their costs?

Exactly. Unless you're going to allow people to die in the waiting room at the ER because they don't have insurance, someone is bearing the cost of treating the uninsured. It's either a spouse, the government, or everyone else who has insurance via higher premiums.

Generally, that cost is much higher. US hospitals can only treat uninsured people who are on death's door, which is ridiculously expensive. Treating people before they need emergency treatment is much cheaper. Or you could be really hard-line, and just let them die if they can't pay for treatment.

Reality, you already have socialised care. It's just really inefficient. And you pay extra for private cover!

US hospitals can only treat uninsured people who are on death's door

I don't know that to be true, here in Florida we have a lot of immigration, many of them are fleeing worse places and don't have a lot of money and definitely don't have insurance, so they go to the ER like others go to their general practitioner. They do this because hospitals are not allowed to refuse treatment to the uninsured.

US hospitals can only treat uninsured people who are on death's door

If you break your arm or get poked in the eye and don't have insurance, you do not get refused treatment at the ER.

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